


The Tortoise and the Heir

by IvoryRaven



Series: Works In Progress [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abused Harry Potter, Abusive Dursley Family (Harry Potter), Child Abuse, Emotional Manipulation, Invasive Muggle Neighbors, M/M, Mind Manipulation, Tortoise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 03:14:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28806393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IvoryRaven/pseuds/IvoryRaven
Summary: There's a tortoise in the garden, and Harry doesn't pay it much attention.But the tortoise isn't the only new thing on Privet Drive. Someone has moved into Number Three, and they keep hosting gatherings that nobody ever gets invited to.Harry should probably have noticed something strange was going on the first time he saw a tortoise wandering around a garden in suburban England.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Series: Works In Progress [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2111985
Comments: 2
Kudos: 56





	1. Chapter 1

There was a tortoise in the garden, and Harry didn’t pay it much attention because it was a tortoise and tortoises were famously slow. 

He was weeding Aunt Petunia’s garden yet again, pulling up perfectly healthy plants and discarding him just because she didn’t like them, nurturing big flowers and convincing them to block all the sunlight for any little sprout that might try to grow.

How unfair, to favor certain plants on a human whim, to decide life and death with a flick of her wrist.

If he were the gardener of Dursleys, Petunia would be a twig he’d prune off and leave to rot in the compost bin at the bottom of the back garden. A thing as rotten as she could only serve as food for the worms.

Harry tossed the last weed away and reached for the hedge trimmers, swaying on his feet in the sun. The tortoise watched him all the while, with big round eyes.

“Get a move on, boy!” shouted Aunt Petunia from the kitchen window. It must be afternoon, then, if she was in the kitchen. She only ever prepared food herself if it was a snack for Dudley when he came back from hanging around with his mates, or if Harry was locked inside.

Harry rubbed his temples with his free hand and made his way towards the hedge. His stomach growled and contorted, demanding food that wasn’t there. 

Hedge trimmers. Clip clip clip. Leaves falling down.

The world swayed and turned, getting mixed up like a Rubix cube in the hands of a toddler.

Clip clip clip. Cutting into the hedge. It was hot.

The sun, unforgiving, glared down from above.

Harry cut. He sliced. He shaped.

The tortoise watched.

“Boy!” shouted Aunt Petunia, her voice fading in and out of Harry’s ears. It was hot. So hot. “Mind… the hedge… trim… stupid…!”

Harry closed his eyes to cut out the assault of jumbled imagery.

Fingers on arm. Wrapped all around. Prick. Eyes open. Blurry. Fingernails ripping. Crescent cuts welling red. Knees scraping brick. Arm being pulled. Head hitting the wall. Black.

When Harry came to, he was on the floor of the smallest bedroom of No. 4, Privet Drive. A few pieces of bread had been shoved under the door. There was mold on it - several colors. How long had they been keeping it to let it get that manky?

But he was hungry, he didn’t know how long it had been since the morning he was fed, and even that had been some cold baked beans, and even the reek of the mold didn’t deter him from wolfing down the bread.

Harry crawled into his bed and slept. The Dursleys would call when they wanted him. Until then, he would rest.

He woke up in the middle of the night, shivering in the summer heat. He rolled over, resting his burning forehead on his arm. Squinting at the room before he drifted back to sleep, he could have sworn he saw a tortoise.

The next time he woke up daylight was streaming through the window. He cringed away from it, blinking his eyes. They were puffy and sore and felt too big for his face. He squinted at the wall. Were those claw marks he saw? Liquid trickled down his face. It wasn’t salty.

Harry tossed and turned in bed. Every part of him was on fire. He was tired but couldn’t sleep. Any moment the Dursleys would call, it had been so long, it felt like, since they’d demanded he do things for them, any moment and they’d be demanding he get up, if he didn’t Uncle Vernon would come and make him, force open the door and drag him out kicking and screaming, if Harry even had the strength to kick and scream.

He was cold and hot, hot and cold, but never comfortable. He shivered, his teeth chattered, click-click-click-click but his skin was dry and so hot he could’ve sworn an egg would cook on it. His stomach churned and gnawed in desperation, but if there was any more food, even more of that moldy bread, Harry couldn’t get himself out of bed long enough to check. He tried, once, and collapsed on the floor. Had he tripped over a tortoise? He thought he had, but he didn’t trust his mind. 

It was summer. Had it been his birthday yet? How old was he? When did he get to go back to Hogwarts? Would the Weasleys come for him? Fred and George had, once. Would they come back? They hadn’t written in ages. Had anyone even thought about him, all alone with the Dursleys? Trapped in a room. Did they know he was trapped in a room?

They had to know. Someone had to know. Hogwarts had known, someone there had, because he’d had letters to the Cupboard Under the Stairs and to the Smallest Bedroom, so they must know where he was. And nobody cared to get him out.

Harry held his throbbing head between his knees. His throat was as dry as one of Professor Binns’ lectures. He had to get out. Had to get out. Had to get out. Go anywhere but here. He couldn’t survive here.

Harry faded back out of consciousness. When he woke up again, the sun was setting. Silhouettes moved in the windows of Number Three next door. They must be having a party. There was no tortoise. Why would there be a tortoise? Had there ever been a tortoise?

Harry wasn’t sure why he was thinking about tortoises. His head was clearing. He stood up, to get a better view of Number Three. An old lady had lived there, but it didn’t seem like she did anymore. Did old ladies throw parties? Merlin, he was no better than Petunia, looking at the neighbors. Thinking about the neighbors. 

His vision dissolved into pixels and then darkness as he fell with the horrible clang of a head on a metal bedframe.


	2. Chapter 2

Number Three, Privet Drive, had a new occupant.

A handsome young man, with dark hair and a charming smile. He was the talk of the ladies’ embroidery association, although he’d only been seen once, when he moved in. There’d been any number of visits to his door with treats to welcome him to Privet Drive, but he never answered. Nobody knew why. Everybody wondered.

Within a few months, Number Three, Privet Drive, was hosting parties that nobody attended. Well, nobody local, anyway. People were often seen inside the house in the evenings, but nobody living on Privet Drive had ever been invited. Least not the ladies’ embroidery association.

Margaret who hosted the book club had wondered if the house was used for “nasty business,” as she put it, but Jane whose tulips had won an award once saw the handsome man from her home across the road, and Margaret found herself uninvited from the book club, which was now at Jane’s house, and the ladies’ embroidery association, which wouldn’t tell her where they now met.

By the time July rolled around, sightings of the handsome man were increasing. Once monthly book club meetings at Jane’s went from monthly to biweekly to weekly. And then, one day in mid-July, they stopped entirely.

“Why?” asked Dorothy, at one such meeting. She was well known for the little white poodle she walked up and down Privet Drive every day between nine fifteen and nine thirty, and for her white curly hair, which matched the poodle’s. 

“Perhaps he’s gone on holiday,” suggested Petunia, who made no secret of her address: Number Four. She even shared a fence with handsome Mr. Number Three!

“I haven’t seen him leave,” said Jane. “But I suppose it could have been while I was out. I wonder how long he will be gone?”

“I do hope it’s soon,” said Dorothy. “I have a lovely ripe lemon, and thought I might make a lemon cake to take around.”

“I wonder if he likes lemon?” said Connie.

“The curtain of his kitchen window has got lemons on it, and it wasn’t there before he moved in,” said Petunia. “I saw him put it up while I was making a snack for my Dudley and his friend.”

“Ah yes, when my Piers was visiting Dudley!” exclaimed Dorothy. “I remember that. You mentioned, Petunia, when I came up to see where the boys had gone to.”

“Oh, boys,” said Connie. “I remember what that’s like. How old are they?”

“Sixteen, just recently,” said Petunia. “We’re so proud, Vernon and I.”

“My Piers had his birthday back in February,” said Dorothy.

“I remember when Edward was that age! What a rambunctious lad he was. Mind, he is in the Marines, now, and with a daughter on the way!”

“How delightful!” gushed Jane. “To think, our own Connie, a grandmother!”

“Are they local?” asked Petunia.

Connie smiled. “They’re moving - the new house is just a few minutes’ walk. A good thing, that - I’ll be able to visit the baby when she comes, and help my daughter-in-law. A fine young woman.”

“Best be careful the man from Number Three doesn’t snatch her away! Got a heart that could melt stone, that one.” Jane shook her head.

“Or turn you _to_ stone,” chuckled Dorothy.

Petunia, looking uncomfortable at the mention of turning people to stone, changed the subject, and the topic of the man from Number Three didn’t come back up.


End file.
